Although Stanley Baker was best known for his role in Zulu it wasn't a typical Stanley Baker film - there was such a thing, it flourished 1957-63 when Baker was a genuine draw at the British box office. He would typically play a tough anti-hero, a crook or a cop, who was involved in a heist, either committing it or tracking down the culprits. The films would be medium budget, in black and white, heavily male focused, gritty and generally downbeat.
He's a crook in this one - an ex-army officer who decides to rob the army payroll during the Suez Crisis when the army was cashed up, which is a pretty good idea. (And makes this one of the few English movies to touch on Suez - The Entertainer was another.) The plan is quite clever, too - pretend to be maintenance men, start some fires, use a fake casualty, then pretend to leave but actually stay (years before Silence of the Lambs and The Inside Man). Baker and his men rely on the public service aspect of the army - being used to poor paperwork, bluffing their way past little penny pinchers, etc.
Indeed, they're so switched on it's frustrating at the end when the crooks start acting like idiots - it feels too convenient. And the movie feels as though it lacks something - I think it's a subplot, or some variety, or maybe stronger characters or more humour, or something. Probably the subplot - it's very linear. And bleak. But it's unpretentious (apart from the take-whatever-you-want cynicism which seems de rigeur for this period) and the final escape scene is mostly very exciting.
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